The English ability of Taiwan's university students is not good enough and they should be forced to study the language throughout their four years at college, academics said yesterday.
"The average TOEFL score among 3,000 sample students was 496," said Yu Min-ning (
"As the students did not know the purpose of the test in advance, they took it without preparing. Therefore, 496 is a realistic representation of the English proficiency among these university students," Yu said.
Yu was responsible for the statistical analysis of the survey.
TOEFL is an English proficiency test for non-native speakers. The test includes three sections: reading comprehension, grammar and listening comprehension.
According to information released by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the organization that designs TOEFL, a score of between 410 and 489 indicates that the test taker's listening and reading comprehension skills are satisfactory but that writing ability is insufficient to attend academic courses in English.
ETS conducted TOEFL in 20 universities in Taiwan from Sept. 1 to Sept. 30 this year. The 20 universities included nine graduate schools, nine national universities, four private universities, two national technical colleges and three private technical colleges.
"Of the students, 32.2 percent scored below 410, a score equivalent to intermediate-level English level; 8.8 percent of the students scored below 350, which is equivalent to beginner level," said Chen Chao-ming (
According to Chen, a desirable score for a first-year college student would be 500 or higher.
"A score of 500 means that a student has an English vocabulary of 6,000 to 7,000 words," Chen said.
The academics came up with a number of ways to improve the English ability of Taiwanese students.
"The expectation of English proficiency among Taiwanese students needs to be a realistic one. Having a realistic expectation enables educators and students to reach their goals more easily," said Chen Ying-huei (
According to Chen Ying-huei, college-level English courses do not necessarily have to be taught by professors who have a Ph.D.
"If practical English is the aim of these courses, the classes should be taught by well-trained English-language teachers, not by professors who specialize in language or literature research," Chen Ying-huei said.
Chen Ying-huei also suggested students be forced to study English beyond the first year of university.
"English education should be made compulsory throughout all four years in college. Furthermore, a comprehensive program should be designed according to the needs of each academic level," Chen Ying-huei said.
Chen Fu-yan (
"It is essential that educational data warehouses be established over time, as such data can be used as a basis of education programs in Taiwan, as well as to make comparisons with educational achievements in other countries," Chen Fu-yan said.
Chen Chao-ming suggested that university-level English education should be standardized, either by individual universities or by the Ministry of Education.
"Currently, nobody knows what the standard books or teaching materials are," Chen Chao-ming said.
Chen said that the integration of English for specific purposes, English for academic purposes and instruction in English are necessary for a successful college-level education.
"There should be ways to measure how good a student's English is before graduating from college, as this measurement guides students and recruiting corporations in their hiring process," said Chen Fu-yan.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching